Light in the time of unprecedented darkness- honoring our healthcare workers.

By:Vedha Vaddaraju

      With the increasing prevalence of COVID-19, it is often common for us to feel that each day's news is worse than the last, but there is hope. Our healthcare workers are tirelessly working on the frontlines to fight the coronavirus disease thats taking rapidly taking over our society. There are many risks involved in working actively on the frontline, nevertheless our resilient workers are putting themselves in the path of this virus — in Texas  and around the world. From the bottom of our heart, we thank our EMTs, pharmacists, doctors, nurses, technicians, transporters, and everyone who  works   with patient care and strives to care for our most vulnerable patients.​ According to data last week from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), health care workers comprised 50 percent of people exposed to confirmed COVID-19 cases. 
      Our healthcare workers are putting duty over their safety. Unfortunately, this pandemic is going to Health care providers are already widely affected, and the pandemic will continue to affect them. After taking a closer look at the SARS epidemic in the early 2000's, healthcare workers comprised 1/5 of global cases, and are a higher risk of being infected. Healthcare workers are crucial to controlling the progression of the virus, and this brings us to our main message. Healthcare workers are in dire need of masks and other protective equipment. We as a society need to work to preserve PPE for our healthcare workers. This can be done through raising money for PPE as well as not hoarding and leaving equipment for those who need it the most during the midst of this widespread shortage. 
      We urge you to send letters of positivity. A recent study published on March 23 in  medical journal JAMA found that in China, 50.4% of healthcare workers reported symptoms of depression, anxiety, and insomnia, and 71.5% reported distress among 1,257 healthcare workers. Frontline workers were among those with the most severe symptoms due to their fear about a lack of protective gear, exhaustion due to long hours, and frustration from watching their patients slipping past them every day. For these reasons, we encourage you to work to send encouraging messages to uplift healthcare workers and join us as we raise money for PPE for medical professionals.